Salt Levels In Processed Foods Still Too High

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Despite recent calls for food manufacturers to cut back on salt
in their products, sodium levels in processed and restaurant
foods have changed little in recent years, a new study suggests.

The study, conducted by the advocacy organization Center for
Science in the Public Interest, reviewed the sodium content of
402 processed foods sold at supermarkets, and 78 fast foods sold
at chain restaurants.

Between 2005 and 2011, the sodium content of processed foods
declined, on average, by 3.5 percent, and the
sodium content of fast foods increased by 2.6 percent. Both
of these changes were so small that they could have been due to
chance, said study researcher Dr. Stephen Havas, a professor of
preventive medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of
Medicine.

Currently, 9 in 10 Americans eat too much salt, according to the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The government
recommends people limit their salt intake to 2,300 milligrams per
day. (For those who are 51 years or older, African-American, have
high blood pressure, diabetes or chronic kidney diseases, the
recommendation is 1,500 mg per day.)

"That’s nearly impossible for people to do right now, given how
much salt is in restaurant and processed foods," Havas said. The
average
American takes in about 3,300 milligrams of sodium per day.
Too much sodium in the diet raises blood pressure, which is a
risk factor for heart disease and stroke, the CDC says.

Overall, the amount of salt we consume from processed and fast
foods needs to decline by at least 50 percent to have benefits
for people's health, Havas said. (Most of the salt we consume is
through processed and fast foods, and not from a salt shaker, the
researchers say.)

The new findings suggest that change happens too slowly when the
food industry is asked to voluntarily reduce the sodium content
of its foods, Havas said. Instead, the Food and Drug
Administration should take steps to limit the amount of sodium
allowed in different categories of food, he said.

Some of the saltiest foods in the study were smoked bacon (1,803
mg of sodium per 100-gram serving), Caesar salad dressing (1,079
mg) and hot dogs (927 mg).

And a fast food meal of chicken strips and fries contained, on
average, 1,239 mg of salt in 2011.

The study did not include products labeled as
low sodium or sodium-free because the intent of the study was
to focus on regular foods that had ample opportunity to reduce
sodium levels between 2005 and 2011.

The researchers found wide variation in sodium levels in fast
food. For instance, a medium serving of Burger King french fries
had nearly twice the sodium as a medium serving of MacDonald's
french fries (670 mg versus 270 mg per 100 g serving).

"Examples like those demonstrate that many companies could easily
lower sodium levels and still have highly marketable food," the
researchers wrote in the May issue of the journal JAMA Internal
Medicine.

Some companies have made commitments to lower sodium in the
coming years. For instance, MacDonald's says it will cut the
sodium content of its whole menu 15 percent by 2015. But, Havas
said, even if companies follow through with these commitments,
they are still not enough.

Salt controversy

Not all studies have been able to find benefits of a reduced salt
diet. A review published in 2011 found that
moderate reductions in salt in the diet lowered blood
pressure, but did not reduce participants' risk of having heart
disease or dying.

In a 2012 interview, Dr. Robert J. Myerburg, a professor of
cardiology and physiology at the University of Miami Miller
School of Medicine, said that for people with heart failure and
high blood pressure, lowering salt intake has clear benefits, but
for people in the general population, it's less clear what the
right level of salt is.

But people should be reasonable about how much salt they consume,
Myerburg said, and the current guidelines are a reasonable
recommendation, he said.

In an editorial accompanying the new study, Dr. Mitchell Katz of
the Journal of the American Medical Association noted that
government regulation of salt content may be difficult.
"Regulating calorie size, or the maximum of a necessary nutrient,
such as salt, will always raise questions of whether the
government is going too far in regulating our lives."